Best Sellers

Friday, May 3, 2013

Edgar Winners Announced Last Night

The winners of Edgar Awards, presented by the Mystery Writers of America were announced last night in New York City. They are all available at the Chattahoochee Valley Libraries if you want to take a look.

Winner of Beat Novel: Live by Night by Dennis Lehane. This is Lehane's tale of gangsters in the 1920 and the son of a prominent police captain. It has some weighty things to say about violence and fathers and sons.

Best First Novel is Chris Pavone's The Expats. The story of an ex-CIA operative who travels to Luxembourg with her husband when he gets a lucrative job offer. Soon she starts to question everything - her neighbors and even her husband.
Best Fact Crime is Midnight in Peking by Paul French. A true crime tale that takes place in 1937 Peking which reads like suspenseful fiction.

Best Paperback Original is The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters. If the world was going to be destroyed by a comet in six months, would you care about finding a murderer? The newest detective in Concord, New Hampshire, is Hank Palace and it makes a difference to him. A noir pre-apocalyptic mystery that is the first of a planned trilogy.The Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award was won by The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan. I have blogged about this one before. Jane Ryland, a disgraced journalist, is trying to track down a secret mistress of a Senate candidate. Jake Brogan, a detective, is looking into the serial murder of young women. Somehow, these two cases are linked.

Congratulations to all the winner. It is interesting that Gone Girl didn't win the big prize but perhaps they were looking for something weightier. I'll have to read Lehane's work and compare. Give one of these a try and let me know what you think.